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three weeks hence, then made the call to a mover to pack up my things and put them in storage.
    “You’re lucky,” the woman on the phone told me. “We’ve just had a cancellation. Do you want us to come on Thursday?” It was Tuesday. I thought Thursday was probably too soon, but when I cast about for reasons to stay longer, I couldn’t think of any. It would feel good to keep moving, I thought. I didn’t want to stay in a place that only reminded me of him. I wanted to go to a new place. I had been ready even before.
             
    On my last night in Boston, my neighbor Sheila Murphy came over with a gift. It was beautifully wrapped—pink-and-gold floral paper and wide, satiny pink ribbon, and at first I worried about having to make a fuss over whatever it was. I felt at the bottom of my own resources; I had nothing to give. But it turned out the gift was not from her but from John. This was so like him, a corny, bighearted man who quoted aphorisms like “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.” Even when he was very ill, he still had sent me flowers. I had once answered the door to a glorious bouquet, looked for a card and found none, then turned to see John sitting on the sofa, smiling. He had no longer been able to walk around very much, but he could still use the phone.
    And now here was his final gift. I began to cry and winced as I put a tissue up to my face. My right eye had developed a minor infection from wiping away tears with everything from hankies to paper towels to envelopes from condolence cards. “Sit down with me for a minute,” Sheila said.
    We moved to the family room sofa, and I sat sobbing beside her, she patting my back awkwardly. It didn’t last long—in less than a minute, I straightened up and took in a deep breath. “Sorry,” I said, and she said, “Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t have to apologize.” She had tears in her eyes, too.
    I looked at the gift in my lap. “Do you know what this is?”
    “Sort of.”
    “What is it?”
    “Well, it’s . . . you know, that one time when I stayed with him when you went out for groceries? He spent the whole time writing out things on little slips of paper. I don’t know what they were. But that’s what this is.”
    I thought of the papers I’d found in John’s hospital drawer. “Just . . . words?” I asked.
    She shrugged. “Don’t know. He asked me not to read them, so I didn’t. He just sat there and wrote these things and then folded the papers and put them in a cigar box. That’s what this is, it’s just a cigar box, but John asked me to wrap it in something beautiful—he said you liked pink.”
    I nodded, miserable.
    “Well, anyway, I just wanted to bring you this.” She looked around the room, then at me. “Oh, Betta. How are you?”
    “Fine,” I said, in a bright and automatic way that made us both smile. “Really,” I said. “I’m okay.”
    “You’ve lost weight.”
    “Well, might as well have one good thing happening!”
    “No, but seriously, you’ve got to take care of yourself. Did you eat today?”
    “Yes.”
    “All three meals?”
    “Uh-huh. Yup.”
    “What did you eat?”
    I sighed. “I had bad cholesterol for breakfast, mad cow disease for lunch, and mercury poisoning for dinner.”
    She frowned, then said, “Oh, Wagner’s? The salmon special?”
    “Yes.”
    “How was it? Randy and I have been meaning to go there.”
    “It was all right.” I tried not to resent her identifying herself as part of a couple in front of me, who no longer was.
    “I can’t believe you’re moving so soon!” Sheila said.
    “I know. It’s hard to explain, but I think it’s the best thing to do.”
    She stared into her lap and fidgeted with her watchband. “Betta, I have to tell you, I think it’s just too radical. Randy and I were talking, and—”
    “It’s too late to change anything,” I said. “I appreciate your concern—I know how crazy this must seem to you,